The End of Madara
by DrkInferno72
Summary: How fine is the line between Pride and Arrogance? Oneshot


Exactly how fine is the line between pride and arrogance? A perfect plan is one that is focused and refined to the smallest detail. A perfect plan is where all ones pieces fall right into place. A perfect plan proceeds without complication or interference from outside sources. A perfect plan is crafted so that no matter what happens in the end, the creator of said plan is ultimately the one who prevails. But alas, there is no such thing as a perfect plan. Because such a plan would require one to calculate infinite equations and variables. Something that not even the most intelligent of shinobi nor the wisest of sages can undertake. A perfect plan requires distancing oneself from all feelings and ambitions in order for it to be crafted. For even the most intelligent and skilled ninja can become blind to the smallest of details by their feelings alone. One's emotions can cloud perceptions just as easily enhance them. Sometimes one is so confident in their plans that they fail to see a single mistake. That one mistake alone comes to bring about their undoing. This story is one of great pride just before the fall. This is the story of

The End of Madara Uchiha

* * *

As he lay dying, Madara observed with some surprise, that death turning out to be not only pleasant, but wonderful; had he ever suspected how much he'd enjoy the process, he wouldn't have wasted all these years waiting for that fool Hashirama to do him in.

So, even as he lay gasping his final breathes, Madara smiled. Even with the convulsing and twitching in his body's last reflexive rebellion against death, as organs began to shut down one by one to maintain the last shreds life within the man, whose powers were massive beyond those of other Uchiha, a clan justly legendary for their prowess on the battlefield. Madara found himself enjoying his end.

His perception was even more acute with the powers of his powerful sharingan; with it, he could feel each and every single one of his cells die out.

His vision began to dim and his hearing became a rush of wind like static, and then finally silence. The sensation registered by his nerves was of broken bones and slow suffocation choking him, as his lungs could supply only a fraction of the oxygen required by his body.

It hardly mattered. Despite all the suffering, Madara observed the death of his physical form with appropriate disdain. "How pathetic" he thought to himself

Now his impossibly refined perceptions (granted to him by his Sharingan) detected a glance of Hashirama' mind, as his old rival witnessed the vanishing of his dying friend, just as Madara always knew he would. Madara had spent decades coming up with a contingency plan to make sure that Hashirama would do that if by some miracle he had returned to thwart his grand design.

Everything could now proceed. All according to plan.

* * *

Reminiscing on his early years, Madara remembered back to those many years ago. When his friends and family died so unnecessarily in battle. Together with Hashirama, he had founded Konoha in hopes that his plans for peace could be achieved. But it was not to be. Slowly, the Senju clan came to dominate the politics of the village, corrupting it. Leading to the mistreatment and distrust against his own Uchiha clan. Ending his then dream of peace. Angered, Madara left the village to begin his own plan. The Eye of the Moon.

Having lost their duel in the Valley of the End, Madara had allowed everyone to believe him to be dead. Instead, having gone into hiding, Madara would be allowed to craft his plan to bring about peace to the world and allowing everyone to receive their happy ending.

Being too old himself to see his plan for the world to come to fruition, he began to look for alternate solutions. Agents who could bring his will to the world. And when the time was right, reincarnate him so he could bask in the world's thanks for all that he had done for them.

Beginning his plans, Madara had implanted his Rinnegan into a young orphan. Nagato, his name, so that it's power wasn't lost upon his death. Then found another agent to act on his behalf, a member of his own clan no less.

Foolish, pathetic Obito... and having the gall to call himself a Uchiha, could never comprehend his own limitations. These limitations were due to the unfortunate tendencies as a clan, to fall short in skill and measure every interaction as a rivalry to some unimportant shinobi. Obito's real weakness was fear. Fear of coming up short of greatness and losing the love of his life, a girl named Rin. A fear so deep and all consuming, that Obito hadn't considered it emotional weakness at all. But Madara, knew, he specifically chose the boy because of it.

Taking in the young Uchiha and treating his wounds, Madara began to use the boy to suit his needs. Manipulating it so that once Obito escaped, he would see that young RIn girl die, by his childhood rival no less.

Were Madara the type of man who could experience pity, he supposed he might feel some for the boy. Crippled by emotion, Obito would never know the freedom of an unbounded will that was the true legacy of the Uchiha clan. And were Madara the sort of individual to be fair-minded about such things, he would have accepted at least some o of the blame for turning Obito into the man that he is now. As pity and fairness were entirely alien to his philosophy as a ninja, though, Madara instead pleasurably recalled the relentless pricking of Obito across their many years together. He had poked constantly at Plagueis' sore spot, to make certain he could never heal.

Once the boy had seen all he needed to, Obito returned to the cave where Madara dwelled, eager to learn of his teachings and plans for the Eye of the Moon Plan, to create a world where tragedies such as the death of loved ones would never happen again.

Thus was the ground carefully prepared. Thus did the seed s offear sprout and blossom into obsession for Obito. Thus had Madara skillfully re-directed Obitos unrivaled aptitude for ninjutsu and genjutsu away from serving the village, from his clan, and from the amassing of personal power and away from any and all pursuits that might have proven inconvenient for Madara's ultimate plan-toward a single goal. A goal he had chosen for his own purposes.

The mastery of life and death and the end of tragedy and heart break. A sort of happy ending for all. The eternal dream to end nightmares.

More than a century before, when Madara had been but a young man himself, his intelligence had led him far beyond the simplistic studies imposed on him. He had always been far too intelligent to be seduced by the traditional shinobi arts. Soon, he had awoken his sharingan. It was a sort of natural amplifier he could use to multiply the effectiveness of his many useful skills.

None of which was more useful than his matchless intellect.

Like many Uchiha before him, he had turned his powers towards study of the Stone Tablet, having been in the Uchiha clan's possession for generations. But unlike any Uchiha before him he had the intellect to carefully decipher it.

Only he could read it.

While still merely a genin, his deciphering of the Stone Tablet had shown him the inevitable cycle of peace and war, of death and destruction. His own studies plainly indicated the coming of a showdown between the Senju and Uchiha so vast it would cover the shinobi world entirely so vast it would mark the end of both Uchiha and Senju as the world had known the. The conflict could be the end of the world itself.

Madara had not the slightest doubt that the entire world would measure time according to the conflict's arrival. Events would be marked by how far they had preceded the conflict, or by how long after it they followed.

Though the exact nature of the great war remained unknown to him, the remorseless logic of his studies detailed the coming destruction of the Shinobi system. The conclusion was so obvious as to require no confirmation.

His own death was clearly foretold, entirely inevitable, and it would precede the Great War by decades. His fate was clear as day. However, as Madara came eventually to realize over his many years of research, study and calculation, it might be possible for the Stone Tablet in question to be, well, deceived...

The key, he'd discovered, lay in an obscure legend referenced in the Sage of the Sixth paths, about a hero fairly typical in most cultures, the sort of future savior who appears in the foundational myths of nearly every society. What distinguished this particular savior from his equivalents was that he, according to four of eleven possible translations, was the jinchuriki iof the Ten-Tails. After several years devoted specifically to exploring all possibilities of the interpretation, Madara determined that such a jinchuriki was indeed possible. Though collecting the pieces of the Ten-Tails wouldn't be an easy one.

And further, he would have to collect each and every single nine jinchuriki to bring about his plan. One that would require the many years he didn't have. Instead he would have the young Obito and his organization, the Akatsuki to do the heavy lifting for him.

And-by the application of a variation of the Reincarnation Jutsu, Madaracould ensure that he would be present at the creation of his new world, it's savior, it's Chosen One. And, at the moment of reincarnation the downtrodden masses would recognize all that he had done for them, eager to accept their escape from this cruel dark world.

With this stroke, years after his death, he would become the greatest shinobi in the history of the world.

It was all in the plan. He could not possibly fail.

Once the plan had been checked over meticulously, removing possibilities of flaw, Madarahad devoted every second of the day to fulfilling his plan. Nothing would be left to chance.

Thus would Madara Uchiha, the greatest ninja in history, be reborn to lead his people to their happy conclusion.

Forever.

* * *

Foolish Obito, the young man thought he could turn against the plan. Following his defeat at the hands of his fellow ninja had thought of restoring the lives of the fallen in the battle. Instead, Black Zetsu, as previously planned, had revived Madara Uchiah instead, taking with him the Rinnegan he would need to finish the final act and becoming the Ten-Tails' Jinchuriki and bringing about the Infinite Tsukyomi, taking the people of the world into their perfect dream. Using God: Nativity of a world of Trees, became the key to Tenebrous master stroke.

Amidst the billions upon billions of individual in the dream, Madara had planned to tether the world to the holy tree. They would not die so long as they inhabited the holy tree. Madara had gone to considerable trouble to ensure it would always remain so.

He reflected, with a twinge of uncomfortable premonition, that perhaps Hashirama had been right when he contended that Hashriama had always underestimated him. As he continued to gloat to that team of Shinobi, Black Zetsu had betrayed him. For an instant, Madara felt the anguish of having been betrayed and stabbed by Black Zetsu... and felt the searing agony as the fist punctured his chest... at his failure to have ever accounted for Zetsu betraying! He would allow Black Zetsuto kill him too soon... The truth was driven home by Black Zetsu announcing that he had been the one doing all the manipulation and lying all along.

This could not be. It could not be contemplated, much less allowed to come to pass. Fury competed with panic as he could be so complacent, so foolish...

So blind.

The truth was driven home by the darkness that clouded his sight. Soon all he could see was shadow... As the Infinite Tsukuyomi he had allowed to sacrifice his ability to gaze forward in time... and had thus robbed his apprentice of his power to sense the future.

Which would seal his own doom.

His single-minded pursuit of eternal peace and a world free from war had accomplished only this. He would be destroyed by his own triumph.

Now wholly giving himself over to panic, Madara turned his will upon undoing the damage done. With all his multiplied power, he attempted yank himself out. He had to think-he had to find a way out-or perhaps he didn't. Perhaps there wasn't one.

Perhaps the best thing he could hope for was the slow, inevitable extinction of his consciousness Then, at least, he would no longer have to squirm in the agony of the Infinite Tsukuyomi...

If… said consciousness was going to fade.

Because it soon dawned on him that he wasn't sure exactly how long the it should take, but he see that he didn't seem to be losing consciousness. He reached out with the sharingan, perhaps he could see something. Anything at all. Or even somehow contact Hashirama, somehow make his presence known, as his old friend would never allow him to survive like this, no matter how reduced his powers might be...

But Hashirama wasn't here. Not only had he somehow vanished, but not even Madara's sharingan could sense any trace of him ever having been here at all... what was happening? How could this be?

The only trace of organic life Madara could see were some ancient remains...

Of himself.

How long had he been here? How long would it take for every trace of Hashirama to vanish? Those remains were years old-decades, perhaps centuries old.

Madara then wondered, with dawning horror, if Zetsu and Lady Otsutki might have somehow corrupted the genjutsu, if their effects on the Infinite Tskyomi might go somehow deeper than an illusion?

What if his eternal dream would be... this?

Or even worse, what if his Infinite Tsukuyomi genjutsu hadn't been eliminated at all, but instead had been s twisted in upon itself? What if his body was ancient because this was the hundredth time he had relived his own death and the shattering revelation of his life-long self-deception... what if this was the thousandth time he had relived it? The billionth?

And then he knew, and at that moment, Madara's only wish was that he at least had a mouth, because he really, really, really needed to scream.

* * *

As he lay dying, Madara observed with some surprise, that death turning out to be not only pleasant, but wonderful; had he ever suspected how much he'd enjoy the process, he wouldn't have wasted all these years waiting for that fool Hashirama to do him in….


End file.
